Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010) review

MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED! 2010

Eddie Romero, John Ashley, Cirio H. Santiago, Sid Haig, Joe Dante, John Landis, Roger Corman, Jack Hill, Pam Grier, Marlene Clark, Steve Carver, Colleen Camp, Alan Birkinshaw, Jon Davison, and lots of other groovy people!

Directed by Mark Hartley

The Short Version: What began life as a Search For Weng Weng documentary, transmogrified into a green glowing blood beast of a movie documenting the harrowing, life threatening ordeal of shooting movies in the torrid jungle insanity that was the Filipino film industry. This magnificently mounted expedition into the bowels of grueling guerrilla filmmaking is a loving testament to a time in cinema history that will likely never happen again.

***WARNING! This review contains images of nudity, violence and rampant, tasteless sleaze!***

HELL IN A HOT BOX! WILD WOMEN READY TO EXPLODE IN A SWELTERING INFERNO OF SEX AND DEATH!

A sleazy and sordidly salacious stroll down memory lane reveals the trashy wonders that went into the weird and wild world of Filipino exploitation cinema as told by those who made them, acted in them, and very nearly died doing them. Take the Oath of Green Blood, grab your MACHETE and prepare to do battle with the UNLEASHED MAIDENS from one of the least explored, kookiest corners of Drive in trash movie heaven.

Blood, Breasts and Beasts--three vastly important ingredients necessary for a steaming pile of toxic Drive-in stew!

The delightfully demented minds behind NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD (2009) and the upcoming Cannon Films documentary, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS, have concocted one of the single greatest documents of a film industry where life and the movies were cheap...dirt cheap. Joe Bob Briggs' three 'B's, Blood, Breasts and Beasts abound.

Girls Got Guns

Not known for its subtleties, making movies in the danger fraught jungle hell of the Philippines was a literal example of guerrilla filmmaking at its most inexpensive and perilous. Fans of the BLOOD ISLAND trilogy, the New World WIP pictures, the no budget wonders of Bobby Suarez and the mindless actioners from Cirio Santiago will have a field day relishing in a fast paced miasma of gleefully grotesque film clips and rollickin' recollections from a parade of actors, actresses and the filmmakers who made them.

The amazing enigma that is Weng Weng!

Lovingly compiled and oozing with a glowing green blood that would make Dr. Lorca proud, MACHETE MAIDENS lives up to its title and then some with its bevy of mud-caked, machete wielding wild women, machine gun toting mercenaries, gnarly, nasty looking monsters, one armed executioners and midget super spies. Originally envisioned as a documentary about the cult midget sensation, Weng Weng (FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY), that auspicious undertaking soon morphed into this ambitious love letter, a cornucopia of kookiness that is the exploitational recesses of the Filipino film industry.


Hartley's diabolical documentary never shirks when it comes to presenting the Philippines as anything but a riotously out of control war zone where the behind the scenes stories were often just as, if not more entertaining than the films themselves. The director shows a grand hand at grasping the ideology behind exploitation movies and what makes them work. No doubt should he ever graduate to features, he could deliver a truly faithful interpretation of Drive in trash that several of today's self indulgent and delusional 'Masters of Horror' repeatedly fail to achieve. MACHETE MAIDENS opening credits alone capture the look, feel and spirit of the drive in experience in a way craptastic crud like the misguided and misbegotten GRINDHOUSE (2007) and the painfully juvenile claptrap that is CHILLERAMA (2011) attempted to wrangle.

Just be mindful not to get your 'Up Chuck Cup' and your soda cup mixed up; one tastes great while the other is less filling!

Hartley's MAIDENS is extremely entertaining and not just as a big bowl of party nachos dripping with melted cheese and salsa, but also as a fascinating history lesson. Prepare to be shocked and awed at some of the horrific tales and life threatening potentiality of making movies in the god-forsaken terrain of the dictatorial, Marcos ruled Filipino nation. Not only is there a goosebumper-crop of harrowing recollections of what nearly brought the films participants to the brink of death (and worse), there's also a candid overview of Coppola's majestically grim, Filipino lensed APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) brought to us in the words of the lovably, and brutally blunt R. Lee Ermey.


If there's any stumbling block at all, it's that the film may be perceived as a Corman-New World showcase. Considering there are a great many co-productions between King Corman and Filipino filmmakers, it's only natural they make up a heavy chunk of this 84 minute doc. Another area that's conspicuous in its absence is a lack of coverage on Philippine cinemas most recognizable export, the portly and bug-eyed Vic Diaz. The man is present and accounted for, but only in film clips with no discussion of his place among the ranks of the Coconut & Gold Republics torrid cinematic saga. With that aside, this a whip crackingly good movie that succeeds in both titillation and education of one of the darkest and wildest corners in movie making history.

This review is representative of the All Region Umbrella Entertainment 2 Disc Set.

Sick Girl (2009) review

SICK GIRL 2009

Leslie Andrews (Izzy), Charlie Trepany (Kevin), John McGarr (Barney), Stephen Geoffreys (Mr. Putski)

Directed by Eban McGarr

The Short Version: Yet another horror-exploitation picture that models itself on the crop of cruelty that was being splattered and shotgunned across drive in and sleazepit theaters across the nation back in the creative cesspool of the savage 70s. This grubby little cinematic disease gets the gore and shock value right, but mucks up whatever artistic potential this 79 minute endurance test possesses with the worst acting this side of an Andy Milligan movie. Incredibly nasty and offensive, if you want to see kids being forced to murder each other, nuns being pissed on, a modern version of the 'Adultery Punishment' scene from CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and an incestuous mass murderer, then this cruds for you.


Izzy is a disturbed young woman who cares for her little brother and unhealthily pines for her older brother who's a marine fighting in Iraq. With no parents to watch over them, a kindly biker friend named Barney occasionally looks in on the two. Terribly protective of her younger sibling, Izzy spends her spare time moonlighting as a mass murderer either ruthlessly butchering random people or torturing victims in her barn.


This independent feature has a good deal of potential as a character study dealing with the mental capacity of an extremely disturbed sociopath and her beyond brutal actions. Instead, the absolutely atrocious acting renders a major amount of this films power to barely a notch above any number of the shot on video shit stains that were excreted on the home video market during the mid to late 1980s. All that we're left with is a sincerely nasty mean-spiritedness that words can barely describe. Even when saddled with worse acting than your average Ed Wood extravaganza, it's nigh impossible to not wince at the sight of children being forced to murder one another, or a savagely creative rape scene that one ups the 'Adultery Punishment' sequence from CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979).


But then, with such a catalog of cruelty marching out at regular intervals, one gets the impression the filmmakers had no interest in delivering engaging performances, but as much gory offensiveness as possible; on that, they succeed beyond expectations. After you've seen a helpless nun being urinated on, the execution of a handful of people on a bus, a human Christmas tree, a child forced to drown another, more child murder, suicide, a titanically gruesome castration scene and a bizarre "sewing scene" that recalls THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (2010), the viewer is emotionally spent. Screaming for the camera is easy, but making the audience "believe" in the characters and what they're seeing is not. And with this lack of conviction, or inexperience from the actors, the lingering, graphic depiction of savagery is made all the more disgusting. If one were to make a comparison to porn, that application fits this film comfortably.


Take the child drowning sequence for instance. Izzy sets up the murder of three bullies that have been tormenting her little brother and delivers this twisted parental speech as to why bullying is bad. Like everything else, this scene has zero emotional gravitas. It simply makes you sick to your stomach that somebody filmed something like that. Fans of FRIGHT NIGHT (1985) and 976 EVIL (are there fans of 976 EVIL?) will rejoice in seeing Stephen Geoffreys as a quirky teacher. He's the single performer on hand here who can hold your attention when folks aren't begging for their life or being tortured to death. McGarr simply seems content with shocking the viewer and nothing more, which is a shame as there's a modicum of depth residing within the bowels of this turgid tumor of sadism and gore.


Written by director Garr, whatever purities he may have been going for are cruelly gagged, raped and butchered by Izzy's frequent murderous mood swings. Some of the photographic shots are mesmerizing in capturing the isolated expanse of rural America, but again, the atrocities devour whatever artistic integrity this 79 minute endurance test can muster. There's also a shock reveal at the end that you may already sense is coming much earlier on. Aside from its dangerous level of barbarism and taboo stomping, I didn't care for this film at all. Fans of graphic violent torture flicks will get their kicks here, but little else. SICK GIRL is simply a SICK MOVIE.

This review is representative of the Synapse DVD.